Willie Rennie: Does the Minister understand the anxiety felt in Rosyth over the failure of the Government to award the contract for the two new aircraft carriers to Rosyth? Will he also reassure me that that is not a cack-handed attempt to exploit some political capital for the Scottish parliamentary elections?

Ann Winterton: In the light of the tragic incident at Basra palace camp last Thursday in which six soldiers were injured, one seriously, will the Secretary of State reconsider evaluation of the C-RAM anti-mortar system and counter battery radar, in order to give our bases in Iraq considerably better protection and a retaliatory response, given that existing, so-called "layered" protection methods are clearly not working?

Ruth Kelly: Of course we listened to the view of people in the north-east, but surely the right hon. Gentleman would agree that the £19 million that it costs to run the regional assemblies is money well spent. Voluntary bodies administer hundreds of millions of pounds largely on behalf of local authorities: they plan regionally, they spend for local authorities, they are often led by local authority leaders and 60 per cent. of the members are from local authorities.

Ruth Kelly: The hon. Gentleman will see my right hon. Friend the Minister of State on the Bench beside me to listen to the debate and of course to reflect on it. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to measures on public involvement in health, because they are designed to give more power to service users in local areas to raise issues of concern to them. They represent a huge advance on patients forums, because they allow an independent voice to be expressed.

Andrew Pelling: Will the Secretary of State concede that by involving just local government in the process, it will be a closed process between public sector providers? There will be a complete loss of accountability from independent people who are able to express serious views about the performance of our health service. What are the Government afraid of when it comes to CPPIH and patients forums? Surely it is inappropriate to take away that power.

Nick Raynsford: Might my right hon. Friend not reflect with me that it is rather bizarre for the Opposition to criticise proposals that enhance the role of local government in the overall scrutiny and improvement of health services locally, when the Opposition have spent much time criticising the Government for not enhancing the role of local government? Why do they not applaud the measure, which will enhance the role of local authorities?

Ruth Kelly: I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes, although he will of course recognise that the commission is an independent body that makes appointments on their merits. He will have an opportunity to discuss that in Committee, as the Bill progresses.
	I hope that, given the consensus in the local government community and despite the reasoned amendment tabled by the Opposition, they will decide today that they at least support the principles behind the Bill: to give a stronger voice to citizens and communities to shape the places where they live and the services that they receive; to encourage local authorities to provider stronger and more strategic leadership for the places that they serve; and to reduce central prescription, so that local authorities and their partners can respond to local needs and demands.

Daniel Kawczynski: The Secretary of State has encouraged me greatly, because she has given the House the impression—this has already been said to me—that the Government will not be prescriptive on this matter and will allow the people in the areas to make the decisions. Bearing in mind that the council in Shrewsbury is overwhelmingly opposed to unitary status and that we wish to keep our borough council in the proud, beautiful town of Shrewsbury, will she respect the wishes of my borough council, myself and the local people of Shrewsbury?

Joan Walley: On the issue of directly elected mayors, will my right hon. Friend confirm for the record that the unique situation flagged-up in the White Paper in Stoke-on-Trent, which has a council manager and an elected mayor, can be changed in a referendum? Will she confirm that when it comes to choosing the kind of governance that we want in the elections of 2009, the Government will work with all elected representatives in Stoke-on-Trent to find a way forward that fits the particular local governance needs of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent?

Caroline Spelman: The House is left in no doubt about my hon. Friend's commitment to his constituents and those who live in Shrewsbury who do not want the status of their district council rolled over either by direction or through the power of the Bill. Local government is asking itself what on earth it has done to deserve this treatment at the hands of the Government. In fact, councils have been more effective in making efficiency gains than any Department, so why the kick in the teeth?
	The Government hold out the promise of reducing the straitjacket of performance targets, but why is there no upper limit on the face of the Bill? When the White Paper was published, the Opposition were sceptical about how long it would be before the tick-box tendency took hold again, but even we thought that the Government's pledge to reduce targets would last long enough to make it from the White Paper to Bill. It seems that our faith was misplaced. When it comes to the crunch, the Government simply cannot bring themselves to trust councils. They will not commit themselves to ending the target-driven tyranny that is such an obstacle to devolving power to local communities.
	I understand how the culture of targets and directives comes about. Any new Government want to make their mark and they try to do that by driving things from the centre. That applies to Governments of all complexions. However, the Government have had almost 10 years and they still feel the need to micro-manage. Local government is desperate for more freedom to innovate and to better meet local needs. Local communities are hungry for a bigger say in decision making, and central Government are in the way. The Bill implies that there should be a general move towards less regulation, but there is nothing binding and nothing on which the Government can be held to account.
	The same criticism can be levelled at the uprated local area agreements, of which the Government have made much when justifying their localist credentials. The provisions for the agreements lack a clear process of how they will be achieved and to whom they are ultimately accountable. As the Local Government Information Unit says in its briefing, it is not clear how the duty to co-operate will be secured in practice. Will the chief constable, sitting at the table with the council leader, dance to his tune or that of the Home Secretary? Who has the line management? In home affairs, Whitehall has. Far from getting together and reaching an agreement based on the wishes of the community they serve, representatives are all dancing to the tune of their relevant Whitehall Departments.
	I see nothing in the Bill that would remedy that problem. To make matters worse, I see no sign that other Departments are sympathetic to the devolving of power to local communities; the reverse, in fact. We will end up with a heavily compromised agreement between representatives who are in hock to their masters in Whitehall. That is why we have proposed something more radical in the Sustainable Communities Bill, which gives local councils far more discretion over the way in which money is spent locally and, for the first time, total transparency in regard to how much is spent.
	The Government have rightly given councils a choice of leadership ranging from elected leader to elected executive to elected mayors, but rather like an anxious child dipping its toe in the waters of localism, they recoil and refuse to let councils decide for themselves whether they want a cabinet or a committee system. When asked about that earlier, the Secretary of State said, "We think it is not desirable to return to the committee system." That is a classic example of centralism if ever there was one. Central Government "think", therefore local government do not get. Has the Secretary of State listened to councillors? Strong leadership is about people, not structures. It is a relatively small issue, but it is a symptom of a Government who, beneath the surface, are still committed to micro-managing councils.
	The Bill contains measures that seem localist on the face of it, but beneath the surface do nothing to loosen the stranglehold of central Government over local government. We welcome the measures to devolve power beyond the town hall to parishes, but urge the Government not to overlook other models of local governance such as residents associations and other elected forums. As we have heard, London councils in particular are concerned about the effect that introducing parish councils might have on community cohesion.
	Further to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), I should add that the Commission for Racial Equality has also raised concern about inclusiveness in the proposed governance arrangements. Only 3.5 per cent. of councillors in England come from ethnic minorities, compared with 8.4 per cent. in the population as a whole, and last year only 10 per cent. of parish council seats were contested. That is the cause of the concern about cohesion.
	If we are to encourage more civic-minded people into local governance, there must be root-and-branch reform of the Standards Board, beyond the scope of the Bill, to stop the frivolous and malicious complaints that will put people off serving their communities. More public involvement may be secured through the community call for action outlined in the Bill, but why has the exception been made for law and order? The Secretary of State said it was because a facility was already in place. If it is, it is not working particularly well.
	The health provisions contain further evidence of the centralising tendency that dogs the Bill, particularly the section on public involvement. It is not a year since the Government published their White Paper "Our Health, Our Care, Our Say", which stated that democratically elected councillors should have a local voice in health and social care. Where is that in the Bill? Without it, councils cannot give real expression to the statutory duty that they already have for public health, and health commissioning remains a Whitehall-driven process.
	A further weakness is the lack of genuine public involvement. What the Government propose is supposed to be the answer to the whole sorry saga of abolishing community health councils in the teeth of strong public opposition. A myriad bodies have been created over the last few years, including the patients forums. Those have already cost £120 million, much of which will presumably have to be a sunk cost under the new formula, but that is now about to be ripped up in favour of LINKS, or local involvement networks. As we have already heard, there is a real danger in what the Government are proposing because of a conflict of interest. Local government already provides social care, which has to be wired into NHS provision. The question is, how independent and how representative will the LINKS really be?

David Taylor: Given that the Bill includes public involvement in health in its title, is the hon. Lady as surprised and disappointed as I am that the Secretary of State, in a very lengthy and detailed speech, did not cover that issue at all? I do not think that a case has been made for the abolition of patient and public involvement forums. Will the LINKS have adequate resources? Will they work within the terms of the Nolan principles, so that people directly involved in the provision of health and social care services will have to state as much and to withdraw from discussions? Most importantly, will they be bound by anti-discrimination legislation, because those who are involved in the PPI forums such as the successful ones in Leicestershire have not been able to get information on that out to their would-be successor organisations—the LINKs?

Neil Turner: Indeed I do. My hon. Friend raises a very important issue but if my reading of the Bill is right, it can be addressed through the overview and scrutiny committees. Local ward councillors in areas of deprivation within broad council areas that have a reasonable level of resources will be able to take such matters to those committees and make sure that the needs of their areas are addressed by councils.
	We have to take into account that not only are some local authorities underfunded, but so are some primary care trusts. If PCTs are substantially underfunded and cover the same area—I see that the Secretary of State is looking at me askance, but I assure her that my local PCT is some £11 million away from its target, and will still be so at the end of the comprehensive spending review. That is a substantial amount of money, and when one adds in the fact that the local authority area I represent is also well off the target that the Government have set, we have a double whammy. The Bill refers to relating the local authority, the PCT and other agencies together, so the amount of funding they all receive will be important if we are to ensure that the governance arrangements deliver for the people of the borough.
	I said earlier that the definition of "fair" is debateable and a movable feast. However, it is not an abstract concept. On the contrary, it is very real and it will be a huge task to ensure that we have the ability to tackle deprivation. We have heard talk of a north-south divide, or a Labour-Conservative divide, but that is not the case. I recognise that there are many areas in the south of England, especially in some of our coastal towns, which have areas of great deprivation. They deserve the resources to tackle that. There are also many areas in need in Conservative council areas and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) suggested, in Liberal Democrat council areas. It is important that we recognise that any definition of fairness has to be about tackling deprivation, on the basis of need, and we need a system of local government finance and other Government finance, when it is devolved, that recognises that.

Neil Turner: I am not quite sure where the hon. Gentleman is coming from—[Hon. Members: "Shrewsbury!"] I will rephrase that. I am not quite sure where he is coming from intellectually. I know where he is coming from geographically. I was talking about the amount of money that local government and other bodies get in grant from the Government: I was not talking about what form of government we should have. I will come on to that issue if the hon. Gentleman will hold his water, as they say in Scotland, and he may have another opportunity to intervene.
	I also welcome the strengthening of local councils through local area agreement, which recognises, at last, the primacy of the council as the only democratically elected institution in the local authority area. That is very important. We have had a long process, started by the Conservatives when they were in government, of moving towards quangos, and that has been to some degree continued by this Government. However, we will at last have a way to reverse that trend and make the democratic process more important.

Neil Turner: My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish gave a little laugh at that, but I remind him that Wigan is one of only two councils to get four stars. I can therefore say, honestly and without a shadow of a doubt, that Wigan has been independently assessed to be one of the best councils in the country. I am glad to place that on record yet again in this House.
	Wigan is able to engage with agencies and bodies in the private and voluntary sectors because it is recognised to be a good authority: for their part, those other bodies acknowledge that they get added value out of its involvement. Giving local authorities a statutory leadership role in their communities will cement the engagement process in place in those areas where it is already evident, and ensure that other parts of the country begin to move in that direction. The Bill will mean that a council will become, not the top dog locally, but rather a leader of equals—the primus inter pares.
	I especially welcome the proposed change to the system of targets. The White Paper proposed that many targets should be scrapped and only a small number retained, and I understand from my discussions with Ministers that that is still the intention. Even more important is the fact that the targets will not be set by central Government; instead, they will be put in place through the LAAs, following discussion with local authorities. The targets that are set will therefore be relevant to each authority—Wigan's targets will be different from Wycombe's, and Cambridge's from Camberley's—and must reflect the needs and priorities of the elected representatives serving each community.
	I turn now to the involvement of the community. That is a very important aspect of the Bill, because we must ensure that the people whom we govern are involved in the governing process so that councils can deliver services in a better way. In addition, councillors' ability to refer matters to the overview and scrutiny committee will greatly strengthen their role as advocates and leaders in their community.
	Moreover, the ability of council leaders to devolve resources to ward councillors will enhance that role, and Wigan, where a substantial amount of money is already devolved to each councillor, offers an example of how important and effective that can be. I live in Wigan Central ward, which is represented by three excellent councillors. They recognised that putting gates across alleys was very important in areas of terraced houses because unrestricted access to the alleys behind those houses leads to burglary and other nefarious activity. The system of gates that the councillors have put in place has greatly enhanced security, and made people feel much better about where they live. I pay tribute to Councillors Halliwell, Willis and Shaw for what they have done in that regard.
	However, the proposals in the Bill carry some dangers. For instance, community capacity is not equally spread. When I was a local authority representative for the Norley ward, I represented people who were not as able as people from more middle-class areas to express themselves and make their voices heard. It is important that we take that into account, so that the Bill does not become a nimby's charter, nor a vehicle for the articulate to override the wishes of the majority. We need safeguards to ensure that the Opposition, of whichever party, do not abuse the process and that they use the measure properly.
	I want to talk about unitary authorities, of which I have some experience. I was a local councillor when Greater Manchester was a two-tier authority and a councillor in Wigan when it was a unitary authority. I was also a council officer in a district council. All my experience, both as a councillor and an officer, shows that unitary authorities serve the people much better than the two-tier system. They do so because there is clarity of responsibility between the electorate and the local authority; people do not have to go to their county council with inquiries about housing or getting their bins emptied, which is the difficulty in two-tier authorities.
	In unitary authorities, there is clarity about resources. The fairly small district council in which I worked was full of excellent people; they were dedicated local government officers but they had neither the financial nor the intellectual resources of a unitary council. When I was chairman of the highways and works committee of Wigan council, we had a difficulty with our local building department. We resolved that difficulty only because we were a large unitary authority, with the financial resources and intellectual capacity to bring to bear on the issue. That could not have happened in the district council for which I worked.
	The role of the Conservative party has been appalling. I understand that the Conservative Opposition have refused to allow Conservative-controlled local authorities to enter discussions about setting up unitary authorities, even when the authorities want to do so because they recognise that it is the best deal for their area. That is disgraceful.
	The Conservatives have form. Under the Local Government Act 1972, and against the wishes and advice of Redcliffe-Maud, the Conservative Government introduced the two-tier authority system, the residue of which is still with us. They have messed about with the system ever since and they are still doing so. They know that unitary authorities are right because whenever they are in government they move towards that system. They know that county councils are not necessarily the right thing.
	Cumberland, Westmorland, West Riding, East Riding, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Middlesex and Berkshire were all English counties abolished by the Conservatives. Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire, Durham, Lincolnshire, Kent, Essex and Warwickshire were all butchered by the Conservatives, when great chunks of them were put into other areas. That is their form.
	The Conservatives went even further. With no referendum and no reference whatever to people in Scotland, they got rid of every county—from Caithness to Kirkcudbright and from Berwickshire to the Western Isles. Every county was abolished and unitary authorities were imposed. In Wales, every county was abolished and unitary authorities were imposed. In Ireland, all six counties were abolished and unitary authorities put in their place.
	The Conservatives know that unitary authorities are best, because when they are in power they set them up. Conservative Front-Benchers should let people decide in their own areas. They should not impose things on Conservative-controlled county and district councils; if people want a unitary authority, let them go for it. Conservatives should tell people that their experience is far better under unitary authorities—they know it, because they did it themselves—than under two-tier authorities.
	I think that it is a good Bill. As ever, it could be improved, but I am sure that we will achieve that in Committee.

Andrew Stunell: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have had informal discussions with the Audit Commission about how that might be done. One thing that is clear is that on the basis of the Government's own system of measuring targets, inspections and performance, no discernible difference in the models can be determined. As to Cabinet government at the national level, we need reflect only on Iraq, the Home Office and the Child Support Agency to realise that that model does not always deliver effective leadership to point us in the right direction.
	This Bill represents quantity not quality, change not reform, and busyness not effectiveness. There are dozens of botched proposals in it, and hon. Members on both sides of the House have already commented on some of them. I want to pick up some of the things that are missing from it, the first of which, clearly, is a strategic view of what local democracy is for, and how to make it more powerful and effective. The signs of it all going wrong were there, of course, with the White Paper, which was very much a delayed "five out of 10" effort, based on a compromise within the Government. It is not the Secretary of State's fault—she inherited a dog and she has added the breakfast—but the framework for the Bill was flawed, and the Bill itself is flawed as well. There is no strategic view.
	Secondly, the Bill has skipped the vital question of making local democracy more representative. The Secretary of State's colleagues in Scotland, working with the Liberal Democrats, have introduced a fair voting system for local government, and it will be voted on and in place for the May elections this year. It is a great pity that such a provision has not found its way into her Bill for England. I will quote the Electoral Reform Society's comments:
	"The Electoral Reform Society believes that the Bill represents a missed opportunity to reinvigorate local democracy in England and Wales. Amongst the numerous reforms proposed in the Bill, a glaring omission is any reference to reform of the electoral system by which councillors are elected."
	Of course, we will want to take that matter into Committee.
	The third missing element is the building of a self-sufficient local democratic system that is self-reliant, with the strength to deliver services for local communities. To do that, those involved need resources, including financial resources. We need the uniform business rate to return to local council control. We need the abolition of council tax and the introduction of a local income tax. We need a reform of the grants system—in particular, an end to the huge civilisation of ring-fenced grants and bids, which takes up so much of the time of local government and its officers—and a much fairer and more objective system of allocating grants.
	Those seem to be the key missing elements, but what about the things that are in the Bill? I shall mention a few of them; there is plenty to choose from in 176 clauses. I shall start with the internal governance of local authorities. On Friday last, the Secretary of State made a written statement about the future governance of Stoke-on-Trent council. Indeed, she referred to it in her speech, and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley) made an intervention. The Secretary of State said in her speech that she wanted to give councils flexibility, and to see them experimenting and doing all sorts of exciting things. I shall quote from her statement of last Friday, which encapsulates in two sentences what is wrong with the Government's approach to these matters.

Andrew Stunell: I am grateful for what the Minister has said, but I am sure that he will agree that with regard to the governance of all local authorities, the Bill says that they have to conform to one of the three new models, and if they do not happen to do so already, the status quo is not an option. There is no question of that situation being endorsed by a referendum before things are imposed by the Secretary of State. The point that the Liberal Democrats want to make is: why is it for the Government to intervene in the internal governance of local authorities? If there were any evidence at all that the performance of local authorities is adversely affected by one or other of the governance systems that are in place, perhaps the Government would have a case. I had a talk with a number of local government consultants who give advice on these matters, and their view was that the best that could be said of the Government's proposals is that they will not make the situation worse. There is no question of their leading to an improvement. There is no possible way in which that could be measured.
	Let us consider the models and look at the changes that the Secretary of State proposes to make to how mayors will come into existence in future. I was interested in what the Minister just said: in Stoke-on-Trent the system could not be changed because it was put in place by a referendum and another referendum is necessary to get rid of it. That is all very good, but what about mayors? There have been 32 referendums on the establishment of mayors, and in 20 cases voters have opposed the creation of mayors. That is two to one against mayors. There are 12 mayors in place, and without doubt some of them do excellent work. There are some good models, and some of them are doing better than their predecessor councils were. Obviously, I want to draw the House's attention to the mayor of Watford in that context. However, the House also needs to understand that in four of the 12 cases there are active campaigns to get rid of mayors, because they are not seen as effective models at the local level.
	The Government's solution is, "Let's take out the public participation in that decision. Let's have mayors established not by popular preference but on the say-so of a council." It is not altogether surprising that the leaders of councils tend to be in favour of strong entrenched leadership. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to see why that might be so. When we consult leaders, funnily enough they are in favour of strong entrenched leadership. The question is: is that model good for local democracy, does it improve the delivery of services, and does it give good value for money? The answer is that there is no evidence at all to show that that is so.
	The proposal to have entrenched leaders, as opposed to mayors, seems to have been drawn up by somebody who had no knowledge whatsoever of local democracy. I was sorry for the Secretary of State, who had to respond to a string of questions on that point. She represents a constituency in which, for a period, no political party had overall control of the local authority. One third of all local authorities are in that position, and it is difficult to understand why she imagines that the strong leader model would be right for a council in which no party had overall control, or how a council with such a governance system would manage if it entered a period in which no party had overall control.
	Whoever worked out the proposal had evidently not looked at the statistics, because in half of the remaining local authorities—the two thirds in which there is a party with majority control—the leader's average term of office is less than four years. What exactly is the model intended to deliver, and how will it do it? I have already commented on the difficulty that there will be for cabinets and cabinet slates; a whole set of issues will have to be explored. I point out in passing that it is a good job for the Scottish Parliament and Executive that the Bill was not in force earlier. Otherwise the past eight years would have been very difficult in Scotland, where there is a multi-party Executive.
	I heard the Secretary of State say that one of the reasons for going down the route proposed is that she will give enhanced powers to local government, which would therefore need strong, effective, centralised leadership to deliver results. That is fine, except for the fact that in the first half of the 20th century there was committee government even in the largest cities, and the committees dealt with public transport, and public utilities such as gas, sewage treatment and electricity. There was nothing that they did not do, and on the whole, they were leaders in those spheres. A lot has changed since then, but the idea that there could be no consensus if work was done by committees, whether multi-party or dominated by one party, and the idea that those committees could not deliver effective decisions, are not based on any proper historical analysis. We have severe concerns about the Bill's proposed changes to governance, and we simply assert that it is for local government to determine how it should govern itself. We have allowed that for the colonies, so it does not seem excessive to allow it for local government.
	On a much smaller and entirely different issue, the Bill includes provisions relating to the powers of the Audit Commission. At the moment, the commission not only does work commissioned by the Government in respect of local authorities, but carries out work commissioned by local authorities on their own behalf, so that, for example, an authority can find out whether its social services department is delivering. The Bill proposes to remove the right of the Audit Commission to accept such work. Just when huge numbers of local area agreements are about to come into force, when there is to be much more co-operative and partnership working, and when issues of value for money and sensible organisation between several tiers of local authorities and public bodies are more important than ever, the Government are including a provision to prevent the Audit Commission from accepting a commission from bodies that want to look into how they provide services.
	I cannot imagine why that decision has been taken, but I shall be interested to learn the reason in Committee. A cynic might think that it has been done so that PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG can be taken on as consultants, at three times the price and half the credibility.  [Interruption.] If the Minister for Local Government wants to tell me, either now or in Committee, why he thinks that is not true, I will listen, but the fact is that he is taking away that right of the Audit Commission, to the disadvantage of value for money, local government and the commission itself.
	The Secretary of State was quiet—whether from embarrassment or not, I do not know—about national health service reform. "Reform" ought to be in inverted commas, and we ought to add, and underline, the word "again". There are district nurses in my constituency who have had three different employers in three successive years, as trusts were moved around. Whether the policy of patient and public involvement in health has been in place for four years, two years or one year, the Government are now tearing up a system that they assured the House was the correct response to getting rid of community health councils.
	The loss of community health councils is lamented by all, except NHS administrators, whose subsequent record of control and management has, of course, caused the Government to tear their hair out. When CHCs were abolished and PPIH introduced, individual complaints were siphoned off and given to the NHS, which thus acted as judge and jury on complaints made against it. Whatever the merits of PPIH, the system is far weaker and more fragmented than it was under CHCs.
	Now PPIH is to be abolished. Hon. Members will have received copies of correspondence in which the first letter says, "Dear PPIH member, thank you for all your help. Your job is now over." The second letter, however, says, "Whoops, we acted a bit too quickly. Please stay on for a bit until we pass the legislation." Clause 162 proposes to abolish the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health. Despite the fact that it has reduced powers compared with CHCs, and it is very much a creature of the system, it still has the capacity to bite, because it said of the Bill's provisions:
	"The Government has yet to report on the resources that will be available to local authorities to support LINks, and the formula to be used to distribute funding. When legislating in 2002 to establish PPI Forums and the CPPIH, Parliament also had no information about the intended budget and consequently many of the intentions of that legislation were unachievable due to funding restrictions applied later."
	The Commission itself says that it could not do the job that it was set up to do by Parliament, because the Government shrank its funding and kept it under strict control. As hon. Members have said, only primary care trusts are required to co-operate with the new system, not provider trusts or, in Stockport, the foundation trust that has just decided that it will no longer meet in public. I tabled a parliamentary question about that, and the answer that I got back was, "That's okay—it's up to them." Not only are some important elements of the national health service omitted, but those that are omitted are the ones that are doing their best to get under cover and avoid public inspection.
	I understood that the code of practice for the Standards Board was to be put into the public domain today, before our debate, but evidently that did not happen. That code will be crucial in determining whether reform of the Standards Board will be workable and effective for local government. I make no bones about it: we think that the board should be abolished—but if it is to be reformed, that reform must be drastic and effective, and the process must be open to discussion and debate in the House. If the code is introduced in a statutory instrument, it will not be debatable, so I ask the Minister, when he replies to the debate, to make it absolutely clear that the code will be published before the Bill goes into Committee, so that we have the opportunity to consider it when we consider the relevant clauses. I understand that the code has been hotly debated by many people, none of whom has been democratically elected. They have all stirred the pot, so it is time the code was published so that we can all have a look at it.
	Even when the Government have got it half right in some parts of the Bill, they have still managed to get it half wrong as well. Whether it is internal governance, the powers of the Audit Commission, NHS reform, the Standards Board or a stack of other matters, there is a lists of defects and errors that must be tackled. The fundamental problem, however, emphasised and underlined time and again by sins of commission and omission, is that the Government do not have any respect or regard for local government.

David Curry: I do not think that there is a contradiction, because there are different circumstances. There are two overwhelming issues that the Leeds city region could address which perhaps could not be addressed in a different context. One is transport and the other might be skills. Those are the two issues that I would highlight in my part of Yorkshire as being the most important to address. There must be a geographic area that corresponds to the sensible solutions to those problems. Other parts of the country have different problems and would not need the same solutions.
	In the Bill, the Government seem to want unitaries, but just a handful of them. We have this famous narrow window of opportunity—I am not sure how those adjectives fit together. I am not sure whether the aim is to allow Cambridge or Oxford to become a unitary, but based on current boundaries, there are serious questions about both those cities. Nor do I feel that the conspiracy is as deep-seated as others do. In any case, it is fairly small beer. The applications will be in by the end of the week, if I remember the date correctly, and then we will see.
	One of the other problems with the Bill is that however much the Government talk about devolution, leadership and letting people decide, they cannot, at the end of the day, kick the habit of prescription. The prescription of different forms of council management are not necessary. If we have a sensible framework to deliver outcomes, I do not understand why the Government should be preoccupied with the structure that delivers them. It was, after all, the Prime Minister, I think, who said that what works is what is best or what is right. Although I do not usually quote him with approval, and I see some cringing on the Labour Benches at that non-ideological, pragmatic approach, on the whole right he is right. That is what matters, rather than the structures. I regret that we have that form of prescription.
	A large part of the Bill is unexceptional and, frankly, unobjectionable. I am mildly in favour of it. There are three main thrusts: leadership, devolution and empowerment. I have said that I cannot quite see that any of them is enough to send the citizens storming to the barricades. Leadership is covered by the local area agreements, requirements on public bodies to co-operate and the scrutiny powers. The local area agreements offer important opportunities and possibilities. As the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport said, there is bound to be debate on who is embraced by the local area agreement. If one is not careful, one gets an absolutely gigantic sort of jellyfish of an orgasm— [Laughter.]
	I wondered how many of my colleagues were awake. I am agreeably surprised. I meant "organism".
	That organism will be very difficult to manage. People will ask why the health trusts and housing associations have not been incorporated, but if they all are incorporated, the poor local authority that has to manage the arrangement will spend the whole of its time packing its bags for a journey that it never gets around to taking. There must be some framework and limit to the working of the system, but I think that there are huge possibilities. Given the pattern of local government expenditure, it may well turn out that in a number of years the expenditure flowing from the local area agreements surpasses the expenditure flowing from the revenue support grant. We need to find sensible ways of managing the reorganised system and giving it a proper direction.
	Another issue is devolution and the possibility of all-out elections and single-ward councillors. I am not sure to what extent my agent constitutes a representative focus group, but he is passionately keen on the idea on the grounds that it will make his job a great deal simpler. This is something that can be decided locally. The enactment of byelaws without the approval of the Minister of State is welcome, but will it be possible to enact byelaws dealing with the issues that my constituents get excited about? They are constantly demanding traffic-calming measures, for instance, and measures to deal with antisocial behaviour—which, no doubt, will be covered by the local area agreements in any case. Then there is the final repatriation of the ethics committee to councils.
	The Standards Board has had an extremely rough ride, which I think it has deserved on the whole, and is now becoming sort of watchkeeper—or perhaps, if I may use a classical analogy, it is Charon, whose job is to ferry people to the land of the dead. It has a hugely unhappy history; let us hope that it improves in its new manifestation.
	As for empowerment, I am rather in favour of parish councils. I recognise that in metropolitan areas certain issues may arise when there is a concentration of people from particular ethnic minorities or persuasions. I only hope that people will beware of thinking that parish councils can achieve very much at all. In fact, their powers are token. The smaller parishes devote most of their time to writing letters to the other authorities in a mood of increasing frustration, trying to persuade them to do something about a local issue, or complaining about or giving advice on planning when they know that the district council will not take a blind bit of notice in any circumstances.
	I speak with some feeling because my wife is a parish councillor. She brings to her parish council a way of doing things that is no doubt due to her French blood, and occasionally leads her to pass comments on Uttlesford district council and Essex county council which would not bear repeating in the Chamber. I have no doubt that the officers of those two councils would reciprocate in equal terms.
	Creating parish councils may provide a voice, but the voice is often not heard. We need to think hard about whether the powers of parish councils—which can vary hugely in size, from representing a small market town to representing 200 people in a village—are really effective in an age of devolution.
	I can see what the community call for action is trying to do, but I am a bit sceptical about whether it will get very far in practice. Councils are pretty disillusioned, and many have not found it easy to extract any reality from the scrutiny role. However, in so far as the community call manages to kick some councillors into some sort of action on behalf of their communities, it may prove welcome. Many councils take their cue from the officers rather too easily. We live in hope, provided that—as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport mentioned—the initiative is not captured by people with particular interests or agendas, as sometimes happens.
	The salient point about the legislation is that it will be launched in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. The slowdown in the rate of increase in public expenditure will dominate the remainder of this Parliament. It will be the dominant continuing political event. The comprehensive spending review will mean tight rations for local government. The most telling phrase in the White Paper, which can be found as early as the executive summary which is a bit of a relief, is:
	"Ambitious efficiency gains will be required as part of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review."
	I hope that local government realise what will be sought of them in respect of those ambitious efficiency gains. They will lead to constant pressure. That will eclipse any measures taken under the Bill. Compared with that imperative, a large part of the Bill is, frankly, merely ornamental.
	The Lyons review will not ride to the rescue. By the time that it has reported, the report has been published, the Government have formulated their response, there has been a consultation on that response and any necessary legislation has been drafted, years will have passed. Although we are all waiting impatiently, the review is not a knight on a charger that will come along and set us free. Therefore the best thing that we can hope for is that the Bill is the first step in a gradualist approach.
	I have twin daughters, and about 10 years ago they had a succession of boyfriends. I had nothing particularly against most of them, but I was also not particularly in favour of them, to be frank. I just hoped that something better would turn up, and I am pleased to be able to say that two things better turned up—one for each of them. I have a similar hope for this Bill. I do not think much of it; there is nothing to laugh at, as Albert might have said at Blackpool—or it is "neither nowt nor summat" as they say in my part of the world. However, we live in hope that something better will turn up—that this Bill is the beginning of a process, and that we will be able to look back at it and say "Actually, something did begin at that stage, and an awful lot has happened since." We hope that that is the case.

Alan Beith: Indeed, and I shall deal with this point in a little more detail in a moment. Perhaps both the hon. Gentleman and I should declare an interest, in that both our wives happen to be members of the county council. We both disagree with the view that the county leadership have been putting forward.  [Interruption.] We both agree with our wives about this issue; indeed, all four of us agree with each other. In fact, all four of the county's Members of Parliament agree on this issue, as I shall shortly explain.
	The districts put together a proposal for two unitary authorities which is an impressive feat of consensus. What really struck me was the fact that they had recognised that different issues would confront the two authorities. The more urban of the two authorities, they said, would primarily face issues such as health inequality, low educational attainment, access to employment, crime and disorder, and synergy with the wider city region based in Newcastle, whereas the dominant issues for the more rural authority would be access to services, market town sustainability, tourism and economic diversification, affordable housing, transport and the condition of the highways. There were different strings of issues, from which I have merely cited some examples.
	That was a revealing analysis. We are talking about two different areas that face rather different problems. They obviously have some problems in common with other parts of the country, but there are some striking differences. The financial calculations, which are notoriously unreliable in any local government reorganisation proposal, did not show huge differences between what could be achieved by having two authorities and by having one.
	I turn to the point that the hon. Member for Blyth Valley so vividly portrayed. When the county leaders put their single-council plan to the council, they realised in the end that they could not win—that they simply did not have the votes—although extremely strong letters had been sent to Labour councillors, saying that if they did not toe the line they would be expelled, and would not be allowed to stand in the district council elections later this year. That was a pretty serious threat, which they nevertheless continued to withstand. I should explain that in the meantime, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) had written to Conservatives in the area, saying that they should not support any change at all, although quite a number of them were by that time firmly committed to the two-council option.
	The council's Labour leadership realised that they were not going to get their proposal through, so at the very last minute a revised motion—it was not on the agenda paper; councillors did not have it beforehand—was produced, containing the following wonderful words:
	"Council...Endorse the submission of a single unitary proposal in the context of county support for the submission of both a single unitary by the County Council and two unitary councils by the district councils."
	In other words, they could take their pick. As the county leader said at the meeting, the Government are going to decide which one to have, anyway. So the council leadership could not get their own proposal through their own council.
	The bid was very complex, involving adding 22 neighbourhood structures. One factor that influenced a lot of people was the county's failure to deliver for rural areas. Opinion probably swung even more behind the two-authority solution when it was realised that the county had an institutional inability to cope with some of the rural problems. The Minister for Schools has taken a close interest in a very vivid example of such problems, and he has recognised that further work needs to be done. In trying to deal with school transport issues, the county ended up imposing a very high charge for school transport for over-16s. It decided to charge £360 per child aged over 16 for transport to school in the rural areas of the county. That does not happen in Cumbria. The council also withdrew train passes from students from Berwick who were travelling to college in Newcastle and told them to go on the bus, which took one and three quarter hours. The usage of the bus has fallen to five people, because it is such an impossible way to travel to college. That is one example of how the decision-making structure of the county did not enable the rural aspects to be considered.
	Another example is the executive, which does not have a single member from either the Alnwick district or the Berwick borough, and has only one from Tynedale. That reflects the partisan differences between the different areas, but those differences would be writ large in a single unitary authority. Whichever part of the authority managed to gain control of the executive, the rest would feel very left out. The two-council alternative is more attractive and more popular.

Joan Walley: As my hon. Friend feels that an elected mayor would be most in the interests of democracy, will he tell us how that would be consistent with encouraging people, young and old, to stand as election for local councillors and to be responsible for strategic decisions, not just for spending a small pot of community money?

Rosie Winterton: I would like to clarify a point. We have made it very clear that we hope members of patients forums will transfer over to the new LINKs. We have also made it very clear that if LINKs decide that some of their people want to specialise in mental health, for example, they should be able to do so. It is important to provide a basis on which people can bring their expertise generally to the LINK, but there is absolutely nothing to stop people from specialising if they want to. I hope that that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman.

Patrick Hall: That is one of the questions that we can ask Ministers, and one of the points that we can pursue in Committee. It is a perfectly legitimate point, but I will not get hung up about it right now. The important thing is that LINKs will be able
	"to enter and view, and observe".
	A more important point that the hon. Gentleman could have picked up on is the fact that the provision applies to public-sector bodies only. Independent providers will only be required to allow inspection. The same applies to the requirement to give information. Under the Bill, both requirements are concentrated on public bodies.
	With regard to independent providers, my understanding is that the inspection and provision of information will happen only if requirements to that effect are written into the contracts arrived at between the public-sector commissioner and the independent or other-sector provider. I understand that there are more than 28,000 contracts between public-sector commissioners and private or other-sector providers of social care, so there is a real problem with how inspection information will be delivered, until the contracts are amended or renewed. That question needs to be addressed in the next few weeks.

Anne Main: I note the hon. Gentleman's comment from a sedentary position: not having been a member of the GLC, I would not know.
	Given the Government's propensity to trample over local opinion, clause 8(2)(a) contains a worrying phrase:
	"the Boundary Committee may recommend to the Secretary of State such boundary change as, in consequence of the review, seems to them desirable having regard to the need to secure effective and convenient local government".
	That prompts the question of what is local. As we have regional targets left, right and centre, I would dispute that "local" means my district. It also prompts the question of what is effective and convenient and for whom; I would suggest that it is not for my constituents, but possibly, for regional or even national government. I do not believe that the needs of my constituents are at the heart of the Bill. This Bill has far-reaching implications and I look forward to debate it in Committee.
	Briefly, as I am conscious that other Members wish to contribute to the debate, I shall address the apparent democratic deficit for health in the Bill. That issue has been raised by many Members, and concerns were expressed about inspections with LINKs, to which the Minister responded that people were entitled to do reviews. If reviews and inspections are similar, I do not know why we need a change of words. If they are not similar, it is a definite change of emphasis, which I do not welcome.
	My local council has already lost its scrutiny of health. It is not happy about that, and nor are local people. They will not welcome a further dilution of their input in that regard. People on the street and the council are infuriated by frozen posts, massive cuts in services and, especially in my constituency, the loss of the proposed super-hospital. The Government are strong on consultation, which is an issue that I raised in relation to the Sustainable Communities Bill, but I am not sure that they are long on listening. A long consultation was undertaken on option 1 and option 2. Everyone was voting like mad, and it was covered in the local newspaper. Ultimately, however, we were told that there was no such option. It had all been a waste of energy and expectation for the local community. Local government, with its hold on the purse strings, just decided that the hospital was not going to happen. That further dilution of patient involvement, along with the lack of accountability, fills me and other hon. Members with great concern.
	The proposed new LINKs need great scrutiny. The British Medical Association has some valid concerns. It observes that LINKs may not work well with those who are
	"less educated or less able to dedicate time",
	It is important that people feel that they can contribute, and are not intimidated by a vast system that does not to listen to the patient's voice. The BMA also says:
	"There is a danger that LINks may be patronised and manipulated by managers",
	and,
	"Lack of Co-ordination for LINks does not formally enable sharing of information and ideas."
	Again, a larger and more unwieldly structure—the Minister tells us that hundreds of people, and almost anyone who wants to join, can be involved—will result in a worrying dilution and lack of expertise.
	The hon. Member for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby), who is not in his place at present, raised valid concerns about the health aspects of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) also referred to patients being marginalised. I will nor revisit those concerns. I hope, however, that the Government will start listening to concerns of hon. Members who feel that the Government are moving not towards localism but to a convoluted and complicated form of bureaucracy, which will mean that the person in the street will not understand what is going on, and will feel yet again that things are being done to them, rather than for them and with them.
	Were the Bill genuinely empowering local councils, and giving greater scrutiny on health, I would support it.  [Interruption.] I hear the Minister muttering away, but I will not explore the jelly fish idea, which grasped our attention for a while. I share the concerns expressed that we will end up with an organism that will not deliver what people want.

David Burrowes: As a member of one of the early standards committees, I welcomed its efforts to ensure that complaints were dealt with by local councillors and independent chairmen, rather than being second-guessed by a national board.
	Why is public satisfaction so low? One question that any resident would want to ask is, "Why is my council tax rising? Who is responsible for that—who holds the purse strings?" As Members have suggested, the whole issue of local government finance is missing from the Bill. That is a big omission, because it is in terms of that that people might feel a change in their level of satisfaction. They want to ensure that their council is much more responsible—that it is responsible for the taxation raised, and that that links in with representation and expenditure. I await the Lyons review with bated breath, but we must not delude ourselves about the importance of matters such as shifting the structures and seeking to improve consultation. The crux is whether local councils have proper autonomy.
	Let me turn to another significant part of the Bill. An issue for the public is whether they have a voice—whether they, or their representatives, are involved in decision-making. Is there a genuine devolution of power? The Government answer that by addressing structural change, but that takes them in the wrong direction. Their structural change involves looking at the option of giving more power to executive leaders. I have not had letters in my mailbag or people banging on my door demanding that more power be given to the council leader. People do not say that they want that. What they want—and what we want when we suggest that there should be more councillors, and that perhaps they might be younger and more able—is more power and accountability for councils and individual councillors.
	That is why it is profoundly disappointing that having a committee system is one of the options among the various structural models. When I was elected as a councillor in 1994, I was one of the youngest councillors in Enfield. It took a while for me to understand what was going on in the council, but I appreciated the signposts of the committee system. I knew where to go to get information and who to ask questions of. My party was not in control of the council at the time, but, as an opposition councillor, I appreciated having the opportunity to ask questions not only of councillors, but of council officers.
	We now have a system of cabinet government, and I was a cabinet member. I appreciated the level of involvement that I had with council officers and having some kind of streamlined decision making. However, the scrutiny of my role diminished, as did the amount of information that went not only to councillors but to the public. Also, newly elected councillors, in particular, do not know where to go. They are put on a scrutiny committee and it takes them a while to get to grips with the labyrinthine ways of how to hold an executive with increasing power to account.
	Other elements of the committee system that were of benefit were the degree of consensus and the cross-party working that could be achieved on a committee, for the good of a community. That now seems to be decreasing. I urge—as I will do again in Committee—that we look into at least giving local communities the option of having such committees, even though in my experience they are not perfect.
	Another issue to do with structure involves the standards committee. I welcome the recognition in the Bill that things have become centralised, that we need to devolve decision making, and that the conduct regime needs to be determined locally by local councillors working with independent members. I was an inaugural member of the standards committee in Enfield. The independent chairman and councillors on both sides of the party divide worked well and diligently. However, the committee became concerned that the standards board was increasingly taking powers and control away from it.
	Also of profound concern throughout the country is the increased detail and the increasingly bureaucratic nature of the code of conduct, and the fact that it lacks basic common sense. Therefore, the suggestion that there might be a clearer, simpler and more consistent and sensible code of conduct is to be welcomed. However, we will need to see how that works in practice.
	I particularly welcome the suggestion that there will be a reduction in the burden of best value and inspection. It is about time that that happened, and my party has campaigned vigorously for it, not least during election campaigns. It is also welcome that the Audit Commission might have a gatekeeper role in terms of inspection, instead of its seeking to perpetuate the inspection regime, which is a circus in many respects.
	The catchphrase "community call for action" sounds good and engaging, but will it involve the public? We must not ignore the fact that the public are engaged in the debate. I have held a number of public meetings about the north circular road—about the continued blight caused by that congested road that goes through my constituency. There was also a recent public meeting against the closure of Southgate police station. I can think of another one that intended to stop back-land development at New River crescent involving a number of houses along our river path. There was also a recent campaign about the proliferation of mobile telephone masts. All such local issues have caught the imagination and concern of many of the public, who are engaged.
	However, the public have a concern that the Bill does not address: they feel powerless to make changes in respect of such issues—issues that are of profound concern on their doorstep, and affect their lives. In the context of the north circular road, they see Transport for London as unaccountable to them—it is unelected—and that other legislation is not providing more accountability. They see Transport for London setting targets and taking action that they have no real control over.
	Communities see the Metropolitan Police Commissioner setting central targets for what are termed community assets, but they have no involvement in the decision as to whether they can keep their local police station. The Government set targets and guidelines for the density of back-land housing development; again, that is a case of second-guessing the local community. Similarly, the guidance on mobile phone masts makes little provision for consulting or involving local people.
	Those are the issues that my constituents are banging on the door about and feel powerless to address, not the structural change that the Government are trying to make, or the mechanism of the "community call for action". They are concerned that this is more than a structural change—that it is a substantive change not in the relationship within local government, but between central and local government. That concern is not being addressed; the Bill is silent on it.
	On local area agreements, the Bill refers to local targets, but the hand of central Government remains heavy. Why should the Secretary of State be able to approve local targets? Local councils and their partners should be free to determine their own targets through their own measures, instead of the Secretary of State seeking to second-guess them. To what extent will the community call for action process involve young people? Will they really be able to call on councils to act? Where is the reference in the Bill to young people's proper engagement in that process? They are concerned about their communities, but will they really be able to facilitate a call for action?
	As I said in an intervention, crime and disorder is excluded from the community call for action process because it is dealt with in the Police and Justice Act 2006. However, what action should communities who are concerned about alcohol-related issues take, for example? Will such issues be dealt with properly? It is clear that they are not being dealt with properly now through the crime and disorder reduction partnerships. Will this bureaucratic model exclude such issues because they fall under the category of crime and disorder, and will that affect proper community engagement?
	I want to finish on the subject of patient and public involvement forums and LINKs. Constituents in my own forum have expressed grave concern about LINKs. They say that although the Government describe LINKs as expert panels, they are not taken seriously by local NHS organisations and carry little weight. My local forum has produced 18 reports, which have had a big impact and are well respected. In the last year, it has produced reports on the anticoagulation clinic, wards, catering services, the accident and emergency department and patients' telephone services, and there are reports to come on blood testing and stroke facilities, maternity and obstetric services, and pharmacy and cancer services—I could go on.
	That is a vigorous and hard-working forum that feels that the proposed LINKs will not address these issues properly. It tells me that spot inspections of cleanliness and patient management are often far more effective than planned inspections by organisations such as the Healthcare Commission. I am concerned that the existing proper statutory duty to inspect will no longer exist, and that, as has been said, there will simply be a duty to observe, which comes with preconditions and caveats.
	I finish by referring to part 11 and the duty to consult, which is to be changed. Will a duty to consult only on significant changes really deal with issues in my constituency such as the local baby clinic and developmental checks, which have been removed without proper consultation? The duty to consult has not been properly upheld. I would welcome the measure if it would firm up the process, but the concern is that it will not. The dead hand of Government is clear in this regard. The questionof what is significant is determined by the Secretary of State. The White Paper was called "Our health, our care, our say", and in Committee I will try to ensure that that phrase is not just words, but leads to action.

Kevan Jones: I strongly support local government—it is an important part of public life in Britain—and I should like to concentrate on two issues in the Bill: the ability of local authorities to opt for unitary status and the devolution of power to communities, certainly to parish and town councils. A lot of the rest of the Bill is about unpicking some of the mistakes that we have made in the past 10 years. I support doing that, but I am not sure whether we will find the perfect local government solution for which the Government appear to be looking.
	The baseline for me in local government is accountability—it has been said already that that is part of the attractiveness of local government—and it involves two things: the ability to elect someone to local office and the ability to remove someone from office, which is just as important. My concern with some of the things that have been said about the Bill and with the tenor of some of the things that the Government are doing is that, somehow, we are trying to depoliticise the process. The suggestion seems to be that using a quango, a board or something that is not directly elected by the people provides a better way to deliver services. I am sorry, but I do not agree with that because, ultimately, people must have the right to remove people from office.
	A classic example—which will not go down well among Government Members, but I am sure that it will among Opposition Members—is the North East assembly, which the people of the north-east rejected overwhelmingly. It is now in place, sitting there, costing £2 million a year. It is not relevant to people, but it is having a direct effect on my constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods), by coming up with the regional spatial strategy. When the two of us asked to make representations to a Minister, we were told that we could make our representations as part of the consultation process, as though we were just ordinary members of the public. The same thing has been said to local councils in Durham. It is completely wrong that an unelected body should have such influence.
	I also want to touch on the issue of leadership, which seems to be something that the Government have grasped, saying that it will solve all local government problems. The options available are a mayor, a directly elected executive, which the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has already described as "bonkers"—I completely associate myself with his views—and a new style of leadership, which is very interesting.
	I was heartened after my intervention on the Secretary of State when she said that the Government would not be prescriptive in the model that was proposed. I must tell the House that that is not what is coming from the civil service. Officers in County Durham have been told that, if they want their unitary bid to be taken seriously, it must contain an element of the new system—either a mayor, or a directly elected executive. I am pleased that the Secretary of State scotched that and said that other options can be put forward. I just hope that that is correct. The case made by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham for a single unitary county in Durham was strong and passionate, and I totally believe in it.
	I fear that, by means of this leadership method, we might get mayors by the back door. I have a copy of a briefing note that was sent to me today by the parliamentary Labour party. It is for people who cannot think for themselves. It says:
	"Does the Government want more Mayors? We want stronger leadership everywhere. The success of Ken"—
	he is known as "Ken" now—
	"in London shows that directly elected mayors are highly visible and benefit from a strong mandate to take tough, but essential, decisions on issues such as congestion charging. People understand who is making these decisions and where the buck stops".
	That demonstrates where the problem comes from. We are looking at the issue in the light of a London-centric model. We have to recognise that there are examples up and down the country of where the old committee system, which I served under for nearly nine years in local government, served us perfectly well. Most of the regeneration of Newcastle and Gateshead was done under the old committee system. The revitalisation of Manchester was done under the local committee system. Let us not be fooled by some of the people who write these position papers and documents. Many of them have never served in local government, but they think that they have the answer to all our prayers in these models. I do not denigrate the hard-working councillors of all political persuasions, who, let us be honest, do their work for little monetary gain and who get a lot of hassle.
	I strongly support the case for a single unitary in County Durham. A bid will be put forward by the deadline of this Thursday. A single unitary will, overnight, clear up the confused mess that we have at the moment. We have a county council that spends86 per cent. of the budget, district councils that are too small and bicker among themselves and over the most small-minded things with the county council. It willdo away overnight with 275 councillors. I have60 councillors in my constituency alone. They vary in quality. We have some good county and district councillors, but all parties are struggling to get people of quality to come forward. Comment was made earlier about savings. The change will save £21 million for the council tax payers of County Durham. More importantly—this will be attractive to many council tax payers—the bid says that the precept will be moved down to the lowest, which is Chester-le-street. Six out of the seven districts will see their council tax precepts reduced.
	The other issue is about devolving power to the local level. That is a good aspect of the Bill and something that we should grasp. I hear people say, "You can't have a unitary county, because you can't represent local people." That can be done. In County Durham, we have some examples of good town and parish councils. That is why I have been fighting for the last two years against Derwentside district council to form the new Stanley town council, which will deliver at a local level. Okay, it is not high politics. It is about flower beds, litter picking, street lighting, Christmas lights and so on. But that is what a lot of people want. The Bill will give them that. The bid from County Durham stresses that devolution of power to local town and parish councils. I accept that that puts some pressure on the existing ones to go for quality status and make sure that they are professional, but it is welcome.
	I do not know whether the Minister has worked out that the timetable for the changes means that we will have elections in May this year and, in the middle of that, we will be saying to people, "Your council will be abolished in the next year to 18 months." Will the Minister think about how we can improve that in some way? It will not help turnout at those local elections.
	Finally, I turn to health. Ever since I was elected, I have made representations about accountability at the local level, and I feel strongly about the subject. What is proposed in the Bill is a complete dog's breakfast. We are unpicking something that we put in place quite recently, as it does not work. It does not work for one reason, which relates to my point about accountability: there must be the ability to affect actions. People must be able to change things. Neither what is proposed in the Bill nor the system currently in place can really change decision making in health at local level, and that is because of that terrible body, the NHS Appointments Commission, which appoints staff without any reference to local people. Even if those staff commit a host of mistakes, local people cannot remove them. If local councillors had made the mistakes that some local trusts in the north-east have made, they would be out on their ear at the next local elections. That is the issue.
	We have missed an opportunity to democratise local health provision, after the mess of foundation hospitals. I am glad that I voted against the idea when it came before the House, and I have been proved right: it did not work, and did not make health more accountable. The Bill is a missed opportunity to introduce if not direct elections to health boards, then at least some way for local people or bodies to remove the decision makers. If we do not ensure that, we will not really interest people in local health. There are opportunities for local people under the Bill, but I do not think that it will be the panacea that people might think it is, or that it will bring about the Government's ultimate aim of finding the perfect form of local government.

Philip Dunne: I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the Minister while he is in his place. To my surprise, I have a few moments, so I shall touch briefly on two issues.
	I reiterate the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) about the timing of the Bill. As the Minister for Local Government said from a sedentary position earlier in the debate, the issue of local government reform has been on the agenda for over two and a half years. The Lyons review was commissioned by the Government to look at the restructuring of finances for local government. It is due to report in March. Why is the Bill not presented for our consideration after the Lyons review has reported? That is extraordinary.
	Another timing issue that I should raise is why areas have been asked to volunteer to change their status by Thursday this week, after Second Reading but before the Bill has completed its passage through the House. We heard from the Secretary of State that she intends to make amendments to the Bill, which could be significant, to do with the powers of the Secretary of State to direct local councils. Councils are being invited to abandon their existing structure for a structure that is still unclear, in terms of both the powers that will be available to them and the financing regime within which they will be operating. That seems a peculiar way to go about making legislation that will affect local government.
	I welcome aspects of the Bill. I welcome the reduction in targets, which we have heard about from many hon. Members in all parts of the House. I welcome the reduction of best value reports. My council—I should have reminded the House that I am still a local district councillor and proud to be so—has to produce best value report notes on some of the most minute aspects of the council's service, which seems quite unnecessary. I welcome some of the plans for increased powers for parish councils.
	But there are many aspects of the Bill that concern me. Other Members have covered those in great detail, so I shall highlight three in particular. One is the loss of the committee structure, as directed in the Bill. I, like many others, have served on committees and found, when I arrived on the council, that that was a suitable way of learning the procedures and methods of council working. In the event of unitary structures being imposed, and with councils perhaps as strong as 80 to 100 councillors, in a cabinet system of government individual council members will be merely voting fodder and will not have access to discussion or decision-making as they do on committees at present, which has cross-party benefits and allows people to mature and perform various roles on the council.
	My second concern, which has not been covered much in the debate, is the impact of increasing city regions on rural areas. There are many rural areas which, even if they become unitary, will not be sufficiently adjacent to cities to be able to be included in city regions. It is important that we consider in Committee whether the similar powers that will be available to city regions will also be available to rural areas, perhaps working together.

Philip Dunne: I assure the Minister that I do not support the bid for unitary status. I have worked closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham to make the case for enhanced two-tier working. My authority has a good track record of enhanced two-tier working with the county and neighbouring district authorities.
	The proposals are supported by the county council, Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors wherever they had an opportunity to vote on them and a small number of parish councils. The consensus in support of the bid is based on an Ipsos MORI focus group, which interviewed 44 people in Shropshire. Earlier, we heard about the views of many residents of Shrewsbury and Atcham?

Alistair Burt: I welcome the many good contributions to the debate from both sides of the Chamber—many of which have identified a series of flaws in the Bill—to which the Minister for Local Government, who has been warmly praised this evening, will respond in a moment.
	Four trends have emerged from what colleagues have said. First, councillors should be doing real jobs. They should be properly engaged, not crowded out by targets set elsewhere or fooled by a structure that pretends to involve them but does not do so. Several colleagues mentioned the need for the committee structure to be covered by the Bill, at least as an option. The hon. Members for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby), for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley) and for Eltham (Clive Efford), my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), and, notably, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) made that case particularly strongly.
	Secondly, the Government have dealt with the health aspects in only a small part of the Bill, and real concern has emerged over the limitations of LINKs. The hon. Members for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) and for Bedford (Patrick Hall) and, most notably, the powerful speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) made it clear how important it is to speak up for the independence of those who comment on health issues, and to speak out against their diminishing role in inspection. We defer to my hon. Friend's expertise and look forward to his participation in the further stages of the Bill. He certainly spoke for the whole Front Bench tonight.
	Thirdly, the House was concerned about truly letting the people decide. Hon. Members drew our attention to the absence of detail in the Bill about how decisions are to be taken—decisions in relation to local government that affect the most important aspects of our constituents' lives. We will forever be pleased that we were in the House on the night when my hon. Friends the Members for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) and for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) announced the results of the debate that should save their local district councils. That was democracy in action, and I challenge the Minister to stand at the Dispatch Box and say that he will not accept the results of those referendums. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), and the hon. Members for Wigan (Mr. Turner) and for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) also spoke of the importance of letting the people decide. Whatever the decision may be, we must bring the people into it. The Bill certainly does not do so.
	Fourthly, more than one colleague picked up on the sense of prescription that lies at the heart of the Government. Whatever their honeyed words about consultation, at the end of the day they are all about telling us what to do. The hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh), my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) made that very clear. My right hon. Friend, above all, put his finger on what was going to happen in the next couple of years. He described the turning off of the public sector tap. If a chill has not already descended on Labour Members as they look at the money that has flowed into the education and health systems over recent years, they must surely feel one now. Let them just wait and see what is coming in the next couple of years.
	I want to deal with the positive aspects of the Bill—although this part of my speech will, understandably, be brief. First, we support local decisions on the electoral and warding arrangements of a council, which should be for the local people to decide. I repeat, however, that we urge the Minister to take the opportunity to look again at the committee system, as so many people want him to do. The Local Government Information Unit backs up that request in its briefing to us.
	Secondly, we welcome the efforts to involve parish and town councils more. My old constituency of Bury—dear Bury—had no such councils, so I came rather new to the 54 parish and town councils in North-East Bedfordshire. They have been a huge blessing. They are a local tier of information and advice and, like the National Association of Local Councils, I strongly support a greater role for them. The parish and town councils in Bedfordshire are very perceptive and sharp. Among the responses that I received to the consultation that I produced, Renhold parish council said:
	"Councillors say also that any measure that can reduce central government interference is to be welcomed."
	We have heard it from Renhold parish council—and if the Government would take note, we would all be pleased.
	Thirdly, although we welcome a revision of targets from the centre, experience suggests that we should examine carefully the new local targets set. Too often, the impression is given that local targets are set with national criteria in mind. Why the Government want to be involved in the setting of local targets we just do not know.
	That brings me to the heart of our concerns about the Bill: the power to direct local authorities to make applications for unitary status, and the absence of any democratic means of gauging public opinion and support for proposals put forward. On 26 October, the Government published a White Paper full of the meaningless modern jargon that those in authority now use to keep the people in their place—the patronising face of modern administration. At paragraph 3.55, the Government say:
	"We are, therefore, now inviting local authorities in shire areas to make proposals for unitary local government ",
	and at paragraph 3.57:
	"More information can be found in the Invitation accompanying this White Paper, including full details of the criteria".
	However, by 13 December, a bare 47 days later, the Bill was published, and out of the blue the word "direct" appeared. Where had that come from? What responses to consultation had there been in those 47 days to make Ministers suddenly realise that taking that power was necessary? If minds were not changed in that time, why was there no mention of the power to direct in either the White Paper or the full details of the invitation?
	It is not as if the White Paper was rushed. The parliamentary brief mentions the debate on the future of local government as having begun in July 2004, with a White Paper expected the following year. It was late, but after hundreds of seminars and speeches, those in local government might have expected it to be pretty definitive, at least on such a major issue as restructuring. Either the failure to mention the power to direct was incompetence of the kind that has become the hallmark of this Government, or it was deception on a grand scale, which is also now indelibly attached to them, from the Ministry of Defence toNo. 10. We have already forced an admission of possible amendment from the Secretary of State, and I look forward to hearing the Minister confirm that.
	Where is there any sense of democratic support for the proposals that will come forward? Where is the referendum?

Siobhain McDonagh: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the list of public meetings to be held in conjunction with the consultation on better health care closer-to-home are all timed for between 6.30 and 8.30 in the evening, which will exclude many people who work in the centre of London? Is he also aware that none of them is scheduled to take place in my constituency—that will not be so much of a problem for him as it is for me—in spite of the fact that it has the worst health?

Ivan Lewis: The hon. Gentleman would not be a Liberal Democrat if he did not ask for yet more resources. Neither he nor his hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam has drawn attention to the fact that by next year the Government will have nearly tripled investment in the national health service. I have no doubt that that has benefited the hon. Gentleman's constituents significantly, but I doubt that it has ever appeared on a focus leaflet in these particular communities.
	I will answer the question, however. It is imperative for the closure to take place quickly and also properly, in terms of alternative arrangements made for adults with learning disabilities to the satisfaction of their families. I assure the hon. Gentleman that if resources are necessary to make that happen, it will not be undermined or impeded as a consequence of lack of resources. As he knows, I do not write blank cheques from the Dispatch Box—it is a matter for the strategic health authority—but I assure both hon. Gentlemen that this is a priority not just for them and the primary care trust, but for central Government. If it is proved that resources are necessary to make the closure work for the people affected, who have already undergone unacceptable experiences, we shall not be found wanting in ensuring that they are made available. As with everything else, however, a proper case must be made.
	The hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam and for Carshalton and Wallington have made a powerful case for their constituents, and in particular for the future of St Helier hospital. It is not appropriate for Ministers sitting in Westminster and Whitehall to make decisions that are best made at local level, but the Secretary of State has given a clear steer that the health inequalities and social and economic deprivation affecting these communities must be one of the primary considerations when final recommendations and decisions are made on St Helier and other health trusts.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at nine minutes past Eleven o'clock.